The Offer

Receive a sign up bonus of $300 when you open a Key Advantage®, Key Privilege®, or Key Privilege Select Checking and receive a direct deposit of $1,000 or more and a combination of five debit card and/or bill payments within 60 days after account opening

Receive a sign up bonus of $100 KeyBank Hassle-Free Account or other qualifying checking account and Make a direct deposit of $500 or more and a combination of five debit card and/or bill payments within 60 days after account opening

The Fine Print

All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them

Offer is available to new bank clients who have not had any type of account with KeyBank within the last 12 months

Have a KeyBank mortgage automatic payment deduction of $500 or more each statement cycle, OR

If you are a Key@Work program member and have at least $1,000 in cumulative direct deposits each statement cycle

Early Account Termination Fee $25

If you close your account within 180 days, you are required to pay an early account closure fee of $25

Our Verdict

In the past KeyBank has offered $200 for the Hassle Free account, so I’d only recommend signing up for the $300 bonus. The difficulty is keeping the account fee free, if you have $10,000 spare you can deposit it into the account at the end of the third month and then close the account at the end of the six months to avoid the early account termination fee of $25. You’d lose out on about $25 in interest compared to a 1% checking account, but that isn’t too bad considering the $300 bonus.

The other option would be to complete the bonus requirements as quickly as possible and close the account as soon as the bonus posts, you’d need to pay the early account termination fee of $25 and possible one months fees of $18 as well.

I have multiple experiences with keybank. Had several accounts in last 2 years for bonuses. If you dry the account t and funds zero out and you close account, they won’t post a Debit of$25 and overdrawn your account. My experience.

Oh no…I signed up a hassle free checking account with KeyBank in March for $200 bonus…Guess I won’t be eligible to get this $300 bonus right? Since the $200 has been posted I don’t think the bank will match the bonus as well…

Yes, it still works. Since I take it you’ve done this before, can you tell me how you plan to close the account when the time is right to do so? I’ve asked in this thread and in the thread for the $200 bonus if closing the account can be done online or via letter or whether it’s necessary to go into a branch to do it, and nobody has answered.

Joe, they definitely DONT Let you know if you missed it. I went into a branch and the Rep kept telling me I met all the requirements and should be getting it soon, OR have it already… FF to the present, I had to talk to a person online and found out he was wrong, my DD didnt go through within the 60 day period, do i missed the $1000 deposit # and got nothing. There’s really know way to know besides waiting 5 weeks…but you can call customer service maybe.

Note that according to their web site, there is a transaction requirement as well: a combination of five debit card and/or bill payments within 60 days after account opening. Don’t forget to do this or else you’ll miss the bonus. You can charge a small amount ($1 or less) five separate times to your debit card to meet this requirement.

So … opened the acct 7/22. Direct Deposit 7/24 (via Chase) and did 5 billpays $22 each on 7/24. So it’s been roughly 7 weeks since I met the requirements…and I still have not received the bonus. Have most of you received the bonus faster than that? Did you receive the bonus prior to the 2nd statement being sent out? any data points would be much appreciated. thanks!

Yeah, bulk for sure. Mine was the 24th too. I misspoke on the 25th. Anyone thinking of downgrading Advantage to Hassle Free? Thinking of doing that to avoid the monthly fee and then hope for a $50 inactive offer? Of course, closing would be best for churning purposes. But if it pays out $50 now and then might be easier to just keep around…. do those $50 offers come around a lot?

I found out the hard way that this is not true. After waiting the 90 days, talking to multiple customer service reps, and then waiting another 7 weeks, and talking to another customer service rep, I was informed that when they say “any accounts”, they include credit cards in that. Even the fact that my credit card account used to belong to HSBC, and was transferred over to Key when HSBC left my area didn’t help(I brought up the fact that this checking account was the first account I had ever opened with Key bank, to no avail).

So, no bonus here. If you have or had a credit card with Key in the last 12 months, you can’t get this bonus.

I wish I read your comment before I opened Key checking account.
No $300 bonus for me because I have credit card account. Other banks seem OK with credit card. This teach me a lesson that I need to read requirements very carefully. Do not assume anything.
Thank you for taking time to alert others.

Just found out new requirement I’ve not seen before:

Offer is available to new bank clients who have not had any type of account with KeyBank within the last 12 months. Only residents of Ann Arbor MI, Alaska, Cincinnati OH, Columbus OH, Dayton OH, Idaho, Indiana (Central and Northern), Maine, Toledo OH, Utah and Vermont are eligible for this offer.

Requirement changes with each Bonus. I just emailed $300 bonus coupon (EDGF0317, exp. date 4/21/17) and it said you can not have any CHECKing accounts within 12 months, not mentioning ANY accounts, ie credit card which I was denied the bonus last year
because I had Key credit card account..

To anyone thinking of downgrading to avoid the account closure fee, bad news: it doesn’t work out that way.

To “downgrade” to the no-fee account, you actually need to apply for a new account and then they close your old one. I figured out at the end of a long process with their reps that you will still incur the early account closure fee if you try to do this.

“Downgrade” is one way to manage monthly fee. I downgrade PNC virtual Wallet with performance spend ( $25 or $5000 balance) to VW ($5 or $500 balance) after I got my $300 bonus. You can also downgrade from Huntington 5 ($5 ) to hassel free account( no fee). May be there are other banks which allow you to downgrade which I do not know.

I have a $300 email offer from KeyBank from August that is expiring in a week. It doesn’t say anything about being limited to the states mentioned here. Should I be okay for the bonus then even though I don’t live in one of those states? Does Serve or PayPal work for the direct deposit?

I am going to call this on a bust for me. Opened account on 7/14. Direct Deposit was ACH from capitol one 360. completed 5 debit by 8/10. It is now 10/31 and nothing. I am now having to pay the monthly fee as well. Can you close the account online?

Hi James, both my wife and myself opened accounts in September. She completed requirements at the end of September and I completed mine at the very banning of October. Both did Capital One 360 transfer of $1000 which showed up as direct deposit. We both had our bonuses posted today, showing yesterday’s date as the deposit date. I suspect you may have yours today as well and if not, there should be one last set of bonuses deposited in December.

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